Ink
by Courbeau
Summary: Oh my god. It was a lily. Right there under his arm. Why the hell did James Potter have a lily permanently etched into his skin?


"...Honestly still don't know why Sirius decided it was a good idea to pull the wool over Marlene's eyes. Couldn't he see he was headed straight for the dog house? And you guys didn't-" Lily waffled, strolling down the dimly light corridor alongside a fellow classmate.

The chilly February air swirled around Lily's flats and breezed past James' black high-tops as they progressed quickly through an open stone corridor on the second floor. The sky was dark and no stars were peeking through the cloud cover that had been visible at sundown. With goosebumps raised on their skin, the two teenagers slipped past a set of wooden doors and back into the relative warmth of the castle.

"Hey, we did warn him! How assuming you are, Evans. You don't know the half of it. In fact, you know far less than half of it," James Potter slowed significantly, scuffing his heels purposefully on the worn hall runner as they rounded a corner.

"Yes, well. She's still complaining about being able to smell gravy in her hair. Morgana knows how many times she's washed it; at least a dozen, I'd wager. She even tried to get me to have a sniff. I personally think it's all in her head. I didn't smell any lingering gravy stench."

"I thought you said she _tried_ to get you to have a whiff?" James laughed. "As in, she didn't manage to convince you to have a go."

Lily blushed.

"She cornered me! You have to understand, she was quite distraught. I mean, who wants to smell like gravy?"

"I don't think it'd be that bad."

"Yes, but you don't mind being the kid who smells like gym locker, like shoes, like dirty boy, like mud. Like treacle tart. Like... oh, there was that one time you smelled like pickling juice. And yet another time when Severus managed to get salamander roe down your cloak hood and you didn't notice until it began to smell... Ew. I remember that odour."

James grinned at her.

"Yes, well, you seem to remember all those times I smelled bad. But what about the times I smelled fantastic?"

Lily scoffed.

"You never smell good, Potter."

James' face nearly cracked in two as he beamed.

"How would you know, Evans? Somewhat of a routine, smelling me? Just to see what sort of scent I'm giving off?"

Lily glared.

"You wish."

James paused, swinging his arms at his sides and sighing to himself. The halls were quiet and empty but Lily insisted that they patrol. It was a Wednesday night, for cripes sakes. No-one was doing their worst in the middle of the week. All the good mischief-makers were planning for the week's end. Naturally.

"Lily, can't we just go back to the Head's dorm? I mean, it's a dull as a dormouse tonight. No one's up to no-good. All the kiddies are packed away in their common rooms, studying like good boys and girls. Or in the case of Sirius, safely out of sight in a broom closet. Occupied and keeping out of major trouble."

Lily cast a glance at James, wondering why he wanted to cut it short. Usually, he was fine with slow nights.

He'd mellowed out this year, and somehow she managed to see why Dumbledore had made him Head Boy. He'd stepped up to the job and was filling the role he was given like she always had an inkling he might, if given the chance to prove himself. He was slightly less cocky, marginally less annoying, and actually put effort into his studies. Changes all of which Lily approved of.

But he was still James Potter and James Potter was always up to something.

"No really, why?"

James stopped and turned to her, blinking.

"I told you; it's slow."

Lily tilted her head.

"Really?"

"Really. That, and I want to look over my Charms work one more time. I have this feeling we're going to have a pop quiz tomorrow. Flitwick, he's a slick guy. But I can just tell," James chuckled and cast his eyes elsewhere as Lily laughed and started walking again, her eyes sparkling in the semi-darkness. She pushed her fiery hair behind her ear and over the opposite shoulder, still chuckling.

"Well... Alright. I suppose we can retire-"

Lily was cut short abruptly.

"Out for a stroll, I see? I hope I'm not interrupting anyth-"

Lily and James both halted in their footsteps and two sets of eyes snapped up, searching the darkness, both unsurprised when the shadow-cloaked figure of Severus Snape skulked out of the inky black around them and into the light of James' wand.

"Just _Head_ duties, Severus," Lily snapped coldly.

James saw the hurt flash across the slimy boy's face like a whip. Still, after two years, he yearned for any attention Lily would spare him, good or horribly bad.

"What are you doing out of bed?" James questioned, wary.

"None of _your_ business, Potter," Snape quipped, a look of superiority replaced that of nostalgic ache.

Heat rose in James' body, starting from his toes and creeping quickly up his chest and neck. Something about Snivellus always got under his skin, and the slimy git knew it. And he pushed every damn time they had to actually acknowledge each other.

Lily gritted her teeth and James grimaced at the sound.

"Actually, Sever-" she started.

"How about you dash back to your common room, Snape, and leave us alone?" James intervened, wishing desperately that this whole run-in had never happened. If only they'd taken the left and gone up past the Transfiguration room and then headed west towards the library, they never would have coincided with Severus Snape and...

"How about you stuff your big, fat, thick-headed self-"

Lily growled low in her throat, the menacing sound emanating from such a small body unnerving both boys simultaneously.

"Twenty points," James drawled, "for back-talking and disobeying a direct order. And another five for being you." Patience and will to escape with all parties unscathed was abandoned.

"Better me than you, you filthy stuck-up prat of a silver-spooned-"

"James is ten times the man you are, _Snivellus_. A hundred times! It's better to be slightly arrogant and somewhat entitled than a greasy, good-for-nothing turncoat," Lily spat hostilely.

Snape looked like he might have died on the spot, bludgeoned to death by Lily's brutal words.

"Oh, I suppose everything is okay now, between the two of you then. He doesn't get on your nerves and annoy every single one of them with his hair-tossing and his prank-pulling and his rule-breaking-"

"There's nothing wrong with _me_."

There was a brief pause before Lily and James heard Snape hiss out something and confused, Lily glanced at James, only to see him frozen in shock. A lattice of gashes had appeared on his skin, over his face and on his arms. Blood was seeping through the fabric of James' t-shirt slowly, turning the hazy blue into a dark, dark rust brown in the dim light.

"What did you... Why... Is he... How could you..." Lily sputtered, falling to her knees beside James, barely registering that Snape was moving around them and taking off into the night.

Whimpering was coming from James' mouth, quiet and slowing and the blood grew exponentially. Lily shook as she took James by the arm and tried to pull him up.

"C'mon James. We have to get you to the Hospital Wing. Come on, please. Please get up. Please!" she heaved. He was limp and she was shivering and her hands were covered in his blood.

* * *

"Madam Pomfrey? Madam Pomfrey!"

Lily Evans burst into the Matron's quarters, breathing heavily, skin as white as a sheet.

"Good Heavens, Miss Evans! Do you know what time it is?"

The woman tugged her robe tighter over her nightgown, startled.

"No time-" she puffed out, "Need your help – James Potter – hurt – looks bad-"

* * *

James Potter lay unconscious on the hospital bed, still and silent and healed. Out cold.

Lily Evans sat shaking beside him in a stiff-backed wooden chair as she listened to Madam Pomfrey mutter in the background with Minerva McGonagall and Albus Dumbledore. She looked down at herself, wondering just how much blood James had managed to lose before the healer had figured out how to knit the wounds back together. Thank Merlin that woman knew what she was doing. Lily's jeans had soaked up the red on one of her knees and it was smudged up one thigh, over her hip and onto her shirt at the hem. She had taken the time to wipe her arms down with a warm cloth after the dust had settled, but she didn't quite know what to do with herself now after all the panic.

Her head fell to her hands and she closed her eyes.

How had Sev been able to do that to another human being, even if they were enemies?

The betrayal of fifth year still stung painfully. He had hurt her, his best friend, so why wouldn't he be able to hurt someone he hated? It would probably be pretty easy for him, actually.

James' calm, even breathing broke into her thoughts and she lifted her head to look at him again.

So peaceful, the blanket pulled up to his waist with a bandage wrapped around his middle, hair flopping on his forehead and his pillow.

"Dear-" Madam Pomfrey startled her, "you can go to bed, you know. It's been a long night for you. Professor Dumbledore will speak to you in the morning, but for now, you should rest." The elder lady gave the student a small smile. "I'm just going to change his bandage and then I'm going to turn in for the night. _Again_."

"Okay. But I can help you before I go, Madam." Lily pulled herself to her feet and wrung her hands in front of her. The matron raised an eyebrow.

"Alright, dear."

She cut through the old bandage with her wand and gingerly lifted one side away from James' chest to reveal a not-quite-healed gash over his ribs on the side facing her.

"Just daub this on top there, over the cut. I'll go get a new bandage," Madam Pomfrey and Lily propped James up and they tugged the old, bloody cover out from under his chest. Lily did as she was told and dabbed small amounts of the orange paste over the line of red. Moving James arm carefully, she continued toward his back and stopped, staring.

Her brow furrowed.

James Potter had a... tattoo?

And it wasn't a wizard one. It didn't move, or change colours or... It wasn't even outrageous. It was small and simple and...

Oh my god. It was a lily. A simple lily filled in with black, stationary. Unchanging.

Muggle.

Pushing the arm farther out of the way, Lily blinked.

There, on his left side, about midway between his waist and his armpit, right under where his arm would hang if he were upright.

Lily pressed her thumb to it and she could just barely see the tips around her own finger. It wasn't much larger than a fingerprint.

Her stomach had bottomed out and she had this static feeling in her very marrow.

_Why_ did James Potter have a lily permanently etched into his skin?

* * *

Three days had passed and Lily was lounging on an armchair by the fire in the Gryffindor Common Room, one leg hanging over the armrest, foot dangling.

This particular Saturday afternoon had been a lazy one, with the students doing relatively quiet things like homework and chess and...

Well, not really.

Exploding Snap could be heard distantly through the din of raucous laughter, loud talking, and petty arguments. A weak sun was streaming in the windows, trying desperately to warm someone's cat who was foolishly trying to sprawl in the middle of the carpet. Paper airplanes were swooping in and around people, and prefects were scolding, but the Head Girl was sitting amongst it all with her nose buried in a book.

She just happened to glance up at something Dorcas said when the portrait door opened and in climbed the Marauders. All four of them. In one piece. Bandage-free.

Again, Lily had to hoist her stomach back to its normal place with her other viscera.

He was laughing at something Remus must have said and Sirius was slapping him on the back and Peter was following hopefully. The foursome was about to mount the stairs to the boy's dormitories when Lily was seized with the urge to shout.

"Oi, Potter!"

James turned at the sound of Lily's voice and his friends paused by his side.

"Yes, Evans?" he smiled, making the heat rise to her cheeks suddenly.

Now or never.

"Go out with me."

The entire Common Room froze mid-sentence, and a rogue plane swooped low into the crowd between James and Lily.

There was a brief pause.

"Yeah, alright." He quirked his smile a bit before turning and continuing on his way up the stairs to the Seventh Year Dorms.

* * *

**Hello all.**

**This was intended to be a one shot. However, I have an idea seed to turn it into a two-shot. Depends on the feedback I get.**

Happy Halloween!


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